Welcome! If you fish in Santa Cruz this summer, I’m sure I’ll see you on the water.

Have you tried trailering with your AI on it? I finally got to used my yakima two weeks ago and the tongue wasn't as long

as my malone trailer.

It was either too close where it prevented me from opening my rear door or it's not balanced and teters off the rear if I

have it farther back.

I hadn't really thought about how it would balance until after I built it. I tried it out this morning, and to improve the balance, i think I'm going to ditch the Hobie bunks, and use PVC pipe instead. I'll need to make the rear part of the bunk removable, so that I can still stand it up on end, but I don't think that'll be too difficult to achieve.

7th Avenue when waves are small. I used to launch at Mitchell's Cove a lot.  Back when the prowler 13 weighed in at 40 pounds or so... wicked switchback stairs.

bushy

That is a great place to launch, but I only ever did it when I could get my kids to carry the kayak down and up the stairs. It's also worth noting that at high tide, that beach might disappear...

I can't believe that it took 11 minutes for that to sell. Sonny must've been asleep...

It looks like a fork and plastic bag is all that's needed to catch an octopus...

For example, I wont bring extra marige drive because its too heavy, and even it out of work, I still can use hand-paddle to make my Kayak move. But I will bring extra AKA, that part is not reliable, if that one broken, will give me a big trouble.........

From what I've seen (and what I've read on the Hobie forum and here), a mirage drive failure is far more likely than an aka bar problem. The only cases that I can recall of aka damage were due to failed beach landing attempts, where the boat goes sideways. On open water, aka bars have been known to detach from the kayak, but it's easy to rig a safety/keeper line so that it won't move much, let alone drop off and disappear into the depths. On the other hand, mirage drives fail often and in many different ways--from broken crank arms and chains to cracked plastic drums, and everything in between.

You can sorta paddle a TI, but I believe you'll have a paddleboard "bench" and cooler on one side and maybe tramps too, which would make that "sorta" more like "nearly impossible". Since you are on a TI, why not just put a spare mirage drive in the other slot for the 2nd pedaler, and bungee it into the "up" position? The extra weight would be insignificant, and in an emergency, you could get access to the spare drive in a few seconds. That could matter if your mirage drive fails at a critical point in time.

You might also want to think about how would steer the boat if one of the spectra lines breaks, as that is not uncommon. And I assume you are carrying at least a couple of extra rudder and aka pins.

Just for the record, my wife bought a Tesla Model Y, so I inherited her 2019 Subaru Crosstrek (my favorite color, "Home Depot Orange"). The first thing I did was install a hitch and then an "Ironman" lift kit, which raised it about 2 inches. I've been trying to abuse the tires ever since, so that I can put on some bigger ones, but unfortunately, the tires have proven hard to kill. Anyways, it's a bit small for sleeping in, but it is possible in a pinch (I'm about 6' 1"). It works great to haul around my AIs (yes, that's plural), and I expect to get many years of use out of it.

As for the 2004 CRV, after painting it rattlecan-orange, I managed to keep it running and used it pretty regularly until this winter. It sat unused for a couple of months during the rainy season and got some serious mold growth inside. So, I gave it away to Goodwill and they auctioned it off for $800. If you see an orange CRV, it has to be the one...

I've watched a bunch of R2AK videos, and it looks to me like it'll be way more of a challenge than your trip down the CA coast (which seemed to have a couple of iffy moments).

Just my $0.02, but IMHO it would not be smart to try to repair that crack and then take the boat on R2AK. I'd also think that it would be wise to forego fishing and just concentrate on survival.